This was the first trip either of us had taken to the west coast, and I’m so glad we went! Traveling has been something we’ve enjoyed so much together the last 6 years, and there were moments on our trip that I felt a little nostalgic thinking of our adventures together in the past. I know from now on it will never be quite the same.

But for every thought of how special the past has been, I was overwhelmed with anticipation for the future. Our traveling might look a little different, but I can hardly imagine how amazing it will be to show our babies different parts of the world.

Thanks so much for all the sweet congrats on my last post. I’ve waited what seems like a lifetime to make that announcement, and I’m so thankful and humbled that God finally allowed it to happen! You all just made it that much sweeter.

So, here’s a quick breakdown of the last few months:

November 12, 2011 – We had our embryos transferred and felt like we were already pregnant. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel scared that it wouldn’t work…but from the moment we left the hospital, we never stopped praying for our babies. I would lay on the couch and talk to them all the time, envisioning them as strong, healthy babies. From day one it felt like they were here to stay.

after transfer

November 21, 2011: We both left work a little early and met at home to wait for the call. We waited…and waited…and waited. And finally about 15 minutes after we were supposed to receive the call, we broke down and dialed the clinic. After identifying myself and holding for eternity, the nurse answered the phone with a “congratulations!” We’ve never felt so full of joy. I was considered 4 weeks already:) We drove straight to Baby Gap and bought onesies.

November 24 – 25, 2011: Shared with the family and gave so many thanks.

December 12, 2011:Week 7. All day nausea set in. Sick in the morning…sick at night. I had no appetite at all, and the only things that sounded somewhat edible were things I would usually never consider putting in my body. Sorry babies.

December 22, 2011: Week 8. Went for our 2nd ultrasound and got the biggest surprise of our lives – not 1 but 2 babies! Praise the Lord. We spent the following 2 weeks celebrating Christmas and sharing our 2nd piece of amazing news with our families. Oh, and of course every 10 minutes saying to each other “are we really having twins???”

sadly, we didn’t get any pics when we told mom and dad McCoy

Weeks 9- 13: Sick. sick. sick. But oh, so happy. I literally did almost nothing besides go to work and come home and lay on the couch for over a month. Jon gets major daddy/husband points for keeping the house running and going on wild goose chases to find anything I could eat. Oh, and lots and lots of backrubs. I’ve heard people say that a woman becomes a mom when she gets pregnant, but a man doesn’t become a dad until the baby (ies:) is born. Not true for my husband. In a way, he’s been taking care of these babies for months already!

Week 14: Started to feel a tiny bit better. We decided to make the big announcement on Facebook and the blog. Up until this point, I was so so thankful for the little babies inside me, but I had a really hard time letting go of my fear and just trusting God. For 18 months I had longed to be pregnant, and in my mind I think I had decided that it could never really happen. Every month had brought so much hurt, and it seemed impossible that it could have finally happened. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but the fear of losing them terrified me. When we announced our news to the world, I felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. It finally felt real, and I finally started really believing that our babies were going to be okay.

Week 15: Took my first picture of the bump!

Week 16: Bump picture number 2. This was the week I finally started to really feel almost like myself again. The nausea completely subsided, and I even started to feel a little more energetic!

Week 17:

Week 17 was pretty monumental. I worked out for the first time in 3 months! And I felt so good about it. When I started the IVF process, I was told I shouldn’t have physical activity, and since I followed every wives tale from eating pineapple to trying to laugh a lot after transfer….eating more eggs…you name it, stopping my workouts was a no brainer. And of course it just continued from there – I felt too scared of hurting the babies in those paranoid first several weeks of being pregnant, and then I was so sick I could barely talk on the phone much less get off the couch. So finally on Monday of week 17 I pulled out the prenatal bootcamp DVD my mom got me for Christmas and then I went for a long walk on two different days after that. Sad how accomplished I feel about walking around the neighborhood. I finally feel like I’m doing something good for myself and for the twins.

Week 18:

baby a:)

This was the week we found out the gender of our little babies! I was so nervous that they wouldn’t cooperate for the ultrasound and we’d be disappointed…but they were good little babies. Let’s hope that’s a good indication of the months/years to come:) The ultrasound tech started off by just letting us see them while she took pictures to send to our doctor. Then it was baby A’s turn to be examined. It only took a matter of seconds to find out Baby A’s gender – and we were so excited!! We also learned that Baby A will be the first one to come into the world if all goes as planned. Next was Baby B’s turn. This time it took a little longer to figure it out, but in the end both genders were as clear as day! The second best part of this ultrasound was finding exactly where each baby is hanging out in there. Now I have a good idea of where they are, and knowing that plus their genders makes this that much more real. I’ll tell whether we’ll be an all boy house, all girl, or one of each in an upcoming post:)

As soon as the ultrasound was over, I had this devious feeling of wanting to keep everyone in suspense, but I resisted. We went home and called parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles and our friends to let them know the exciting news. I loved getting to tell everyone, but by the end of all the excitement, I was exhausted!

Week 19

Week 19 was almost as exciting as the previous week because I felt the babies move for the first time. I’d been willing them to give me a few good hard kicks for a couple of weeks, but so far I’d felt nothing! The first few times I felt them left me excited, but also wondering if it really was them. But after it happened several more times, and I was feeling it on both sides, I realized that yes, it really was our 2 little babies making their presence known! One thing that made me doubtful at first was that it didn’t feel like a flutter like many people said it would. It felt more like a really soft little bump from the inside.

Week 20: and now I’m finally caught up!

Okay, I know I’m going to look back on this and laugh at myself, but I feel like I look huge in this picture! Not sure if it’s the stripes or if I’ve just doubled in size since last week…but either way I think the baby belly looks large and in charge:) This week we had another appointment, but no ultrasound. We did get to hear the heartbeats (which sound like little trains to me by the way) and the doctor checked me and said everything looks perfect! Yay! So far I’ve gained 12 pounds. I wasn’t really sure if that was good or not, but my nurse assured me I’m right on track. What a relief! I’ve also been getting in some really solid 3 mile walks this week, which have felt so good. And we ordered a treadmill, so I see many more walks in my future:)

And now for some randomness from the first trimester (which is obviously a little outdated, but I really wanted to document it somewhere)!

Symptoms (some known and some only I am convinced are because of pregnancy)nausea (of course), earaches, out of control sense of smell, exhaustion,
lots of bathroom trips, congestion, increased pulse (Jon doesn’t buy this one, but it’s for real),
bad taste in my mouth

I realize this post was a complete overload of updates, but the combination of sickness, exhaustion and most recently, pure laziness has inhibited my blogging. I am kicking myself for not being better about documenting the last few months, and now it’s time for a fresh start.

So, look for upcoming posts on our last big trip just the two of us, nursery updates, the gender reveal!, and how my eating has changed since pad thai and cheerios!

I am so far beyond excited. And thankful. And I would be lying if I said I’m not scared to death as well.

We are slated to arrive at the hospital at 6:30 tomorrow morning for retrieval. The last few weeks have been such a challenging whirlwind. We’ve given me shots while standing anywhere from the Whole Foods parking lot to a stairwell we snuck into during a Halloween party to the middle of the Colbie Caillat concert. Life has carried on despite the ultrasounds, blood work, pills and needles…but it’s been different. The anticipation of this IVF event has changed the tone of everything the last several weeks. And it’s all come down to the next couple of weeks (no pressure).

I have never prayed harder in my entire life than I have in the last few weeks. I’ve prayed constantly that God would enable my body to do what it’s supposed to do. So far, He has. Everything leading up to now couldn’t have gone better, and I couldn’t feel more confident going into this next phase. Unfortunately that doesn’t make our percentage any higher, but I am so thankful that He has chosen to bring us this far.

I’ve also prayed that God will give me the courage to trust him first and foremost. That whether our little babies survive and have the chance to develop or not, I will trust Him with our future. I will trust that He has a plan, and that plan will be carried out no matter what. This is my biggest request to my Heavenly Father. I believe He is faithful.

So, please pray with us. I’ve got needle marks all over, cramps in my stomach and emotions ranging across the board. But I’ve got so much hope inside. I’ve tried to figure out how to walk the tightrope of being positive, but protecting myself for so many months; this month I stopped trying. I put my heart out there, and I’ve done every thing I could…

For the longest time, Jon and I have felt God urging our hearts toward adopting a baby. For whatever reason the Lord has, this urging has always been in the direction of international adoption, specifically. We are both passionate about travel and other cultures and adopting from another culture seems to fit that. We of course realize that there are babies right here in our own country who are in need, but that doesn’t make the homeless babies in Thailand (for example) any less homeless. Even though we didn’t feel quite ready for a baby at that time, our visit to a Thai orphanage in 2008 watered the seed that God had planted in our hearts, nourishing our desire to bring a baby just like this little girl home one day.

Throughout the course of our journey through infertility, our excitement and longing for adoption has intensified ten-fold. I’ve said so many times that before we would do IVF, we would adopt. It honestly has never made a big difference to me whether our baby would come to us biologically or through adoption. I ache to experience both joys – feeling a baby grow inside me and welcoming a baby from another place into our lives. But the decision is not always that easy. God has blessed us with amazing insurance, which covers such a large portion of infertility treatments. For that reason alone we feel compelled to try for a biological baby first. In addition, the issues I had that were taken care of in my surgery back in May are recurring. So, as time goes on, they are slowly coming back, renewing their curse on my body and lessening my chances of ever conceiving a baby. With this in mind, we decided that if we were ever going to do everything we could to get pregnant, now is the time.

I still long every single day to start the adoption process. When I see a family with an adopted child, my heart aches in the same way it does when I see a pregnant woman or a precious little newborn. I was looking through some old journal entries, written in the past year and a half, and I found this entry, penned in April of this year right before my surgery.

April 4, 2011
Dear little McCoy,

I know I don’t know you yet, little one…but I already love you so much. Your daddy and I have been talking about you for the longest time, and we cannot wait until we get the chance to have you as a part of us.

Here in just a little bit I’m taking the first step to find out how you might come to be. Your mommy doesn’t know if you will come into our family as a tiny newborn that has grown inside me or as a precious baby from another country, but I want you to always know that I pined for you for so long, and I already love you more than there are stars in the sky, regardless of how you come into our life.

I know that God has a plan for you and for your life, and I’m praying for that plan all the time. I think about you every day, and deep inside my heart I long to be able to rock you, play with you, teach you about Jesus and show you the world .

Just the other night, we went to a mexican restaurant in town for dinner. Because it’s the best mexican food in town, there is always a long wait to be seated, so we claimed a bench spot in the already crowded waiting area. As we sat down, I noticed that the family to our right was busy corralling two little girls, who I’m certain were from somewhere in east asia. The mom and dad looked to be about our ages, and they were wearing shirts that indicated they were from our college town. Looking to be about 3 or 4 years old, these little girls were so precious. Probably appearing a little creepy, I couldn’t take my eyes off them the entire time. I was mesmerized by how much my heart ached to have little girls just like them as my own. My eyes began to fill up as I sat there feeling so intensely as if that should be us. Should is a funny word, I know.

Sometimes I want so badly to just quit everything we’re doing now and start our adoption story. I’ve spent a lot of time researching steps of the process, agencies, countries, expected hardships, the financial aspect etc., and I’m so ready to begin something that is going to be a sure thing in the end. This cycle of uncertainty, waiting and heartbreak is just so trying.

That being said, I know that we are very blessed to be given this opportunity and that not everyone is put in a place where they can go to these extreme measures to build their family. Despite my impatience to begin adoption, I still pray every day and thank God for providing us a way to try and get pregnant. I don’t take it lightly, and regardless of what happens, I’ll always be so grateful that we had the chance to pull out all the stops and really go for it.

I wanted to take a moment and write down these thoughts, so down the road I’ll remember exactly where our hearts were during this time. I pray to God that this works and I get the privelege of giving birth to a baby that is half me and half Jon. And regardless of whether that happens or not, I have faith that our dream of bringing a baby home through adoption will come true as well. It just depends on when and how. I can’t wait to see how the Lord decides to build our family.